A big congratulations to When Claude Got Shot (2022) on their Creative Arts Emmy win for exceptional merit in documentary filmmaking. Director Brad Lichtenstein and collaborator and star of the doc, Claude Motley were both on hand at an awards ceremony last Saturday to receive their awards. The doc, which appeared on PBS’s Independent Lens in May, was one of three nominees in the category, which also included Changing The Game (Alex Schmider, Hulu) and Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches (Julia Marchesi/HBO). When Claude Got Shot follows five years in Claude Motley’s life as he tries to recover mentally and physically after being shot in the face by 15 year-old Nathan King, who was attempting to steal Motley’s car while he was in town for a high school reunion. As he recovers, Claude grapples with, and reflects on, his ambivalence over King’s incarceration for the shooting him, given the deep racism that permeates the criminal justice system.
The film, which showed at SDFF 2022, is available to stream through PBS Passport. PBS interviews with Motley and Lichtenstein are available to read or stream. Lichtenstein’s new project with Yoruba Richen, American Reckoning, is also with PBS. American Reckoning is the latest component of Frontline’s multiplatform initiative Un(re)solved, of more than 150 victims of civil rights era killings for whom there has been no justice. Lichtenstein and Richen’s contribution is investigates the 1967 murder of Wharlest Jackson Sr., a local NAACP leader.